96 Expedition to the 



by lunar distances, but the meridional altitude of the sun's 

 lower limb, taken with great care, and under circumstances 

 favorable to accuracy, gave 35° 16' 19" for the latitude of 

 our encampment. 



The river bed, at this place, was found by admeasurement, 

 sixty yards in width, twenty of which were naked sand-bar, 

 the remaining forty covered with water, having an average 

 depth of about ten inches. The current is moderate, the wa- 

 ter intensely red, having nearly the temperature and the 

 saltness of new milk. It suspends a very considerable quan- 

 tity of clay, derived from the cement of the sand-rock, but 

 notwithstanding its impurities, it is more grateful to the taste 

 than any we had met with since leaving the mountains, and 

 though drank in large quantities, produced no unpleasant ef- 

 fect. 



Some spots in the low plains had here considerable fertili- 

 ty, depending probably in some degree on the intermixture 

 of a large proportion of calcareous matter, with the soil re- 

 sulting from the disintegrated sand-rock. Though no exten- 

 sive formation of limestone appears, yet the sandstone has 

 not only in many instances a calcareous cement, but is tra- 

 versed by numerous veins, both of Gypsum and carbonate 

 of lime. 



The occurrence of the elm and the diospyros indicated a 

 soil at least approaching towards one adapted to the pur- 

 poses of agriculture. Among great numbers of interesting 

 plants, we found here a gentiana, with a flower much larger 

 than g. crinita^ an orobanche, probably the o. ludoviciana, 

 iV., a new croton, an ipomopsis and many others. Notwith- 

 standing the scarcity of game, which we had so long felt, 

 we daily saw numbers of antelopes, with some signs of bear, 

 deer, and turkies; but these animals had acquired all the vi- 

 gilance which results from the habit of being often hunted, 

 and the entire want of thick foi'ests, and even of solitary 

 trees or inequalities of the surface to cover the approach of 



